


Sick of Losing Soulmates

by BelieveInNargles13



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Psychological Torture, Torture, more tags to be added as the story progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2019-12-30 07:06:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18310643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelieveInNargles13/pseuds/BelieveInNargles13
Summary: Yasha could understand why she hadn’t recognized her immediately.  She looked nothing like the Beau she remembered.   Her face was covered in blood, which was honestly the most Beau-looking thing about her.  But she also had a black eye and maybe a broken nose.  The rest of her body was covered in bruises, indicating some probably some broken ribs as well.  It wasn’t hard for Yasha to make the connection that Beau had been tortured while in their captivity.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Critters! This is my first Critical Role fanfic, so I hope you enjoy! I feel like there are a ton of these stories out there where Beau is in trouble and Yasha moves earth to find her, but this is my version of it and how the two deal with the aftermath. Please enjoy!
> 
> Title from the song "Sick of Losing Soulmates" by dodie from the playlist Ashley created for Yasha that will never fail to make me cry!

Yasha made her way down the stairs three, sometimes even four, steps as a time. Her skeletal wings pulled in slightly to allow her to quickly move through the narrow passage. As she reached the bottom, she paused briefly to examine her surroundings. The hall was lined with cells that went on further than her darkvision allowed her to see. 

_Shit._ She thought to herself.

The guard had confirmed she was down here. Yasha's necrotic shroud had been enough to frighten him into admitting that to her. But in her rage, she hadn’t thought to ask him which cell she was in before plunging the Magician’s Judge through his chest, grabbing his keys, and rushing off down the passage he had indicated. She hadn’t expected the dungeon to be this large. 

She started making her way down the hall pausing at each cell for just long enough to glance inside.

No. No. Empty. Empty. No. Empty. Empty. No. Empty. Empty. Empty. Empty. Empty. N-

Yasha did a double take into one of the cells. She went over to the door, wrapped her hands around the bars, and leaned closer to get a better look. Her wings retracted, her hair returned to its normal color, and while she couldn’t see it, from listening to the accounts of her friends she knew her eyes were returning to normal as well.

“Beau?” she said as gently as she could. 

The figure in the cell didn’t respond or react in any way. 

_Please just be asleep or unconscious. Don’t let it be the other option._

There were shackles around Beau’s wrists and ankles. Her hands were chained to the ceiling high enough that her feet couldn’t touch the floor, and it looked as though both her shoulders had dislocated from being in that position for so long. Yasha could understand why she hadn’t recognized her immediately. She looked nothing like the Beau she remembered. Her face was covered in blood, which was honestly the most Beau-looking thing about her. But she also had a black eye and maybe a broken nose. The rest of her body was covered in bruises, indicating some probably some broken ribs as well. It wasn’t hard for Yasha to make the connection that Beau had been tortured while in their captivity. Yasha prayed to the Storm Lord that there weren’t any serious injuries she wasn’t able to see.

But what was most evident to Yasha was that since the time she had been abducted, she had lost a lot of weight. Beau had always been slender, but toned. Now, even from the other side of the cell, Yasha could count her ribs.

“Beau,” she exclaimed quietly again before reaching down and trying the keys on the ring she had taken. Thinking back, she should have realized how many cells were down here by the sheer number of keys on the ring. There were dozens of them. Yasha tried her best to go through them quickly, but after the 6th or 7th one she dropped the whole thing and lost her place. 

_Fuck! I don’t have time for this! Beau doesn’t have time for this!_

Yasha threw the keys to the ground and grasped the bars of the door once more. She felt her rage boiling up inside her again as she pulled. The door was strong, but Yasha was stronger. And she was angry. Slowly she felt the door start to give way and, letting out a primal scream, her veins bulged, her muscles flexed, and she pulled the door straight off its hinges. 

Either the sound of Yasha’s yell or the door busting was enough to wake Beau. Yasha saw her jump and then wince in pain before looking up. Her hair was falling in front of her face, no longer is its signature bun on the top of her head. She caught sight of Yasha, rolled her head back, and groaned.

“I thought we were done with the fucking mind games. What are you going to make her do to me this time? How many more times do I have to tell you I don’t know where it is?!” She got a little quieter. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Just kill me already and put me out of my misery.”

Yasha wanted to believe that that last line was Beau being her normal, snarky self, but the tone in her voice indicated otherwise. She sounded like she was ready to die. Whatever these bastards have been doing to her, if they had been trying to break her, they succeeded. 

Yasha calmly approached her friend, and gently reached forward to cup Beau’s face.

“Beauregard. It’s me. I’m here. I’m sorry it took so long.”

Beau finally made eye contact with her. She was struggling to keep her eyes open. “Y-Yasha?” she asked quietly, her voice small and shaky. Also very un-Beau-like. “Is it… is it really you?”

“Yes. Yes, Beau. I am here.” Yasha's eyes scanned over Beauregard taking in all her injuries. From this closer view, she could see tiny cuts all over her arms and torso and some small, circular marks that looked a lot like burns. She was about to reach up for the shackles around her wrists to try to find a way to free Beau from her bonds when she heard someone behind her.

“Yasha?” a high voice called out.

Yasha swiftly pulled her sword from its sheath and swung it towards the noise, the tip coming within an inch of Nott's throat.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Nott apologized rapidly. “Things are handled upstairs so I came to see if you needed some help!”

“Nott,” Yasha sighed as she resheathed her sword. At least now she understood why she hadn’t heard anyone coming down the long hall. She had to commend the goblin for her timing. “Can you pick the lock on these shackles?”

“Yeah! I can do that!” She scurried up Yasha’s back to stand on her shoulders so she could reach the lock and started with her picks.

Yasha returned her attention to Beau, whose head was starting to drop down to her chest. “Stay with me, Beau. Stay awake.” She reached out to lift Beau’s face up towards hers again.

“Almost got it,” Nott called from above her.

At the last second, Yasha reached out to grab the sides of Beau’s shoulders in hopes of keeping the dislocated appendages from jostling them too much when the bonds released, and to keep her from completely collapsing immediately to the floor. When the lock opened, she felt all of Beau’s weight drop into her hands. The monk cried out in pain as Yasha lowered her to the floor, sitting her up against the wall, and tried to bring her arms down as gently as she could. Nott had jumped off Yasha’s shoulders and started on the bonds around Beau’s ankles. 

“I can make your shoulders hurt less, but first it’s going to hurt more. Okay?”

Beau didn’t respond, but it wasn’t really a question. Yasha pulled out the book she had all her flowers pressed in. “Here. Bite onto this.” She held it out to Beau and encouraged it between her teeth. She grasped Beau by the upper arms and caught her eye. “On three. 1… 2… 3” and she popped Beau’s shoulders back into place simultaneously. Yasha was thankful for the book. Not only did it keep Beau from biting her tongue off, but it muffled her screams. Yasha didn’t think she would have been able to handle hearing the full, raw cry of pain. 

The pain had been enough that Beau immediately passed out. Yasha gently laid her down on the ground as Nott said, “Got it!” and the shackles came off her ankles. 

“Go get Jester or Caduceus.”

“Is she going to be-"

“NOW, Nott!”

As she rushed off, Yasha’s focus went entirely towards Beau. She pushed Beau’s hair out of her face. She was sweating, but her skin felt cold and clammy. Her eyes were closed and her breathing sounded labored. Yasha placed her hand on Beau’s sternum. And said a quiet prayer to the Storm Lord.

“Please don’t take another one from me.”

She felt her healing magic course through her body and into Beau’s. Yasha almost felt relief as Beau’s breathing seemed to become a bit easier. But she knew that her healing was minimal. Beau needed a cleric. 

Yasha spent the next minute or so stroking Beau’s hair and talking to her. Trying to get her to wake back up. It felt like forever before she finally heard a set of feet running down the hall. 

“Yasha!” She had never been so happy to hear Jester's accent. “Nott said you found her! Is she okay?!”

Yasha kept her attention on Beau, but rotated her body in such a way that Jester could see Beau lying on the ground. 

“Oh Beau, oh Beau, oh Beau!” Jester worriedly exclaimed as she knelt down next to Beau and started casting as many Cure Wounds spells as she could muster. “Help her, Traveler!” she called out before directing her next words at Yasha. “The fighting is done upstairs,” she explained. “Everyone is okay. Dairon took a few good hits, but Caduceus is taking care of her.”

With every spell that Jester cast, Yasha relaxed the tiniest bit. Some open cuts on Beau’s body closed and a few bruises began to fade.

“I’m going to do a Greater Restoration too just in case,” Jester explained before casting one last spell on Beau. “There. That’s all I can do. I’m out of spells now. But we can see if Caduceus has some.”

Yasha put her hand on Beau’s cheek and tried to shake her awake. “Beau. Beau? Can you open your eyes?” Beau groaned and her eyes flickered open, only to immediately close again. Yasha gave Jester a concerned look. “Why isn’t she waking up?” When someone fell unconscious in battle, the healing magic always brought them back to their feet. Why was this time different?

“She’s been through a lot,” Jester offered. “She needs rest. But she’s safe now. We’ll keep her safe. Let’s get her out of here.”

Yasha scooped Beau up in her arms. As they began to head out, they were met in the hall by Caduceus. 

“Hey. Dairon thought this might be a two-cleric job. They'd only take one base level healing spell and then sent me down here.” He looked down at the figure in Yasha’s arms. “Seems they were right.” He laid his hand on Beau’s arm and cast his own Cure Wounds spells and turned to Jester. “Did you use any restoration spells on her?”

“I did a Greater Restoration, but another one couldn’t hurt.”

Caduceus cast a few more spells but Yasha didn’t ask what any of them were. She was looking at Beau’s face, trying to see any discernable change in to her current status. More bruises faded, small and large cuts sealed, but the color didn’t return to her abnormally pale skin. 

“Well, that’s all we can do for now. Let’s get out of this dungeon,” Caduceus suggested and started heading up to the warehouse they had been fighting in.

When they got to the top of the stairs, Yasha looked around to take in the current status of the rest of her friends. Caleb and Nott were looting the bodies of the dead. Fjord was sitting on the floor and talking with Dairon. Dairon was staring at the door they had just walked through and immediately started pushing herself to standing. Her effort was pained and labored, but she pushed through and started heading over to the group. 

Yasha then looked around at the carnage. Their intel had told them there were six guards stationed here at all times. Then, part way through the battle, two more made their way up from the dungeon and all of a sudden, they were outnumbered. But you should never underestimate the determination of a party fighting for one of their own. Yasha counted the bodies. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7… 

“Seven,” she said aloud. “Why are there only seven bodies?”

“One got away,” Dairon provided having made her way over to the group, hand pushing tightly against her ribs. 

“What?! You let one get away?!” Yasha instinctively pulled Beau closer to her and started looking around, as if he might be sitting around the corner just waiting to get sight of her and finish her off. 

“We’ll find him, Yasha,” Fjord said. The rest of the group had made their way over to see the status of their friend. “Is she…?”

Beau looked even worse in the sunlight that was coming through the warehouse windows than she had in the dim light of the dungeon. 

“She’s alive,” Yasha said.

“What now?” Caleb asked. “Where do we go next? We need to bring her somewhere safe to recover. And soon. Before the next shift comes to take over or that mage returns with more friends.”

The answer came to Yasha after only a short moment. “The Ball-Eater.” 

“I’m sorry. The what?” Usually Dairon let the weird things they said slide, but apparently this was too strange for even her to ignore. 

“Our ship!” Jester explained excitedly. “That’s perfect, Yasha! We can go out into the middle of the ocean where no one will bother us! And if they do, we’ll see them coming from miles away!”

“We’re only a five day walk from the coast,” Caleb said. “We could get Orly to meet us.”

“Ooo! I can send him a message! Er… tomorrow. I cast all my spells for today already.”

“Let’s start heading to the coast then,” Fjord decided. He turns to Yasha. “Is she okay enough to travel? Will you be able to carry her, at least until we’re able to get some horses? Or do you want us to help you carry her?”

“I’ve got her. Let’s go.”

And they all started towards the coast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! I currently have 4 more chapters planned, but might go longer if people enjoy it or if I get more ideas. If you have anything specific you want me to mention or explore, feel free to leave them in the comments! I won't make any promises, but I will see what I can do. (And if you have any suggestions for tags I should add, feel free to let me know those as well! This is my first AO3 post so I'm still figuring everything out!)


	2. Chapter 2

Dairon watched as the barbarian woman laid Beau on the ground inside the magical shelter the wizard had summoned. They had only been walking for a few hours and it had only just started to get dark, but they were all exhausted, both physically and emotionally. What had really made them decide to rest was when Beau had started shivering uncontrollably.

The barbarian, _Yasha_ , Dairon corrected her thoughts, laid out a bedroll and wrapped Beauregard in her cloak and numerous blankets. This seemed to calm Beau’s shaking, but it didn’t cease. 

Dairon couldn’t help the worry she felt. Despite everything she’d ever warned herself against, she had grown attached to Beau. She cared for her and saw her potential. Beau had a fire in her that couldn’t be taught. It could be extinguished, or it could be stoked. Too many people would try to extinguish it. Beau’s father had tried. Zenoth had tried. But Dairon knew how powerful that fire could be if applied to the right fuel. 

She had been warned about Beau before taking her on as a pupil. As one of the, or possibly just the, biggest troublemakers at the Colbalt Soul, she was the topic of much gossip among the more elder monks there. Most of them were exasperated with her, but Dairon couldn’t help but see herself in the young woman in the anecdotes. While Zenoth was focused on Beau’s defiance and trying to tame it, Dairon suspected there was passion in there that just needed a focus.

She knew she was right when she met Beauregard in Trostenwald. It was clear that the young woman had been waiting her whole life for someone to believe in her and support who she is. Someone to recognize the skills she had developed and teach her how she can improve in a way that would make her want to improve. It annoyed Dairon that it took so long for someone to realize Beau’s potential and nurture it, but if she had to be that person, she would be. She could tell after that first lesson that Beau was smart. She was a quick learner. It was no surprise to Dairon that Beau had run away from the Cobalt Soul. She was bored there. Like Dairon, she would learn better out in the world experiencing things. Not reading them in books and listening to Zenoth drone on. She could immediately tell that Beau was strong and determined, two traits she was going to need now to recover from whatever she had been through. 

When Dairon had heard that now familiar tiefling voice in her head asking if she had seen Beau because she was missing, Dairon knew something was very wrong. Beau wouldn’t have just left her companions without telling them, and Dairon knew she had to help them find her. Dairon was not used to operating with a group, preferring to do things on her own and usually finding all the information she needed from her contacts, but in the end, it turned out they needed each other. Dairon heard rumor that something important had been stolen from Beau’s father and that he highly suspected Beauregard. But it was a contact of the party, a man they referred to as The Gentleman, who had heard the rumor about a warehouse that was a front for a prison where private contractors would get information out of people by any means possible, given the right price. And Beau’s father could afford ‘the right price’. Dairon did not join the party when they went to get the details on the location from this man, having steadfastly refused after hearing she would have to give him her blood, but she did involve herself in every part of the planning process to rescue Beau. 

During the search she had gotten to know Beau’s friends better and while she would never admit it out loud, she was starting to like them. She could understand why Beau stayed with them. They may not be the most mature or experienced fighters, but they were all capable and fiercely loyal to one another. Almost, Dairon would argue, to a fault. Since Beau had been missing, they had pushed any other tasks and missions they had been on to the side and devoted all their energies to finding her. 

She hadn’t thought too much about the barbarian woman until the battle. Yasha was always the quietest of the group, only occasionally offering thoughts on what they should do when directly asked for her opinion. But in the battle, Dairon saw another side of her. She hadn’t realized that Yasha was in love with Beau until she had a guard pinned under her sword. 

“WHERE IS SHE?! WHERE IS BEAUREGARD?!”

The barbarian’s booming yells briefly attracted Dairon’s attentions, but the skeletal wings were what held them there for slightly too long. It had been what allowed the man she’d been fighting to land a strong blow to her ribs with his war hammer. She had suspected in that moment that Yasha's feelings for Beau went beyond that of loyal friendship, but it was everything since then that had confirmed. Since emerging from the dungeon with the unconscious Beau in her arms, Yasha had refused to let her go. The tiefling and the half-orc had both offered to carry Beau for a portion of the trek, but Yasha ignored them. Even now, as she was laying Beau on the ground to rest, Yasha positioned herself so that Beau’s head was on her lap. She ran her fingers through Beaus hair.

Dairon knew that Beau needed food and water if they expected her to survive. They had no way of knowing when she last time she had been given anything to eat or drink was. Dairon grabbed her waterskin and some rations and headed over to Yasha and Beau. 

“She needs food. And water. Do you think you can get her awake long enough to help me do that?”

"I can try.” Yasha lifted Beau so she was sitting up, leaning back against Yasha's chest. “Beau,” she whispered into her ear. “Beau. Can you wake up for me.” She rubbed Beau’s arms and gently shook her to try to coax her to consciousness. 

Dairon was impressed by just how gentle this woman could be. In battle, she was fierce and strong, consumed by anger and a recklessness that would make Dairon reluctant to fight her one-on-one. But with Beau, she looked like she wouldn’t harm the tiniest of bugs. 

Beau never completely regained her consciousness, but she became responsive enough with Yasha’s coaxing that they were able to tilt the waterskin between her lips and get her to drink something. They worked together to use some of the water to soften the rations and get Beau to swallow some of that as well. It wasn’t much, but hopefully it was enough. 

After helping her lay Beau back down, Dairon gave Yasha a nod and went back to the part of the shelter she had claimed for herself. Her original intention was to be on her way again after Beau had been found. But she couldn’t leave just yet. She had to wait until she knew for sure that Beau was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the relationship between Beau and Dairon and how it seems like she is the first person who is a mentor/parental-figure to Beau who actually supports her. So I wanted to explore that a bit (and trust me, there will be more!)
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has left kudos or comments! I promise I read them all and they make me feel very happy inside!


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing Beau became aware of was a rocking sensation, but she couldn’t tell if it was her surroundings that were rocking, or just a sensation brought on by her pained, sleep-deprived, food-deprived mind and body. She took a deep breath. It hurt, but she could smell salt in the air. Rocking and salt: two things that added up to maybe not being in a dungeon cell anymore? 

She slowly opened her eyes, blinking a few times to adjust to the Light spell that was illuminating the room. She took stock of her limbs, slowly stretching each one out. For the first time in weeks she could freely move her arms and her legs. Fuck, for the first time in weeks she wasn’t dangling by wrists she couldn’t feel anymore. 

She took another deep breath, this one coming more easily than the first, and let out a groan as she continued to move her sore, stiff limbs. 

“Well hey there, sleepy head. How are you feeling?”

Beau was initially startled by the sound, but it only took a second for her to place the voice. She turned towards it and her heart swelled when she saw her tall, pink friend. They had found her. She was safe. 

“Caduceus?” her voice came out as a quiet croak. She tried to clear her throat, but it didn’t help. “Where are we?”

“About two days off the Menagerie Coast. We decided that we all needed some time on the open sea again. I hear the salty air is good for the soul.” He smiled down at her. “Let me go make you some tea.” He started to head out of the room. 

Beau watched as he paused before walking out the door and realized there was someone else in the room with them. Yasha was sitting in a chair next to the door with her eyes closed and her arms crossed over her chest. She watched as Caduceus placed his hand on Yasha’s shoulder. She sleepily opened her eyes as he leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Look who’s awake,” and was out the door. 

Yasha’s eyes locked with Beau’s. It took her a second to register what she was seeing and what Caduceus had said, but as soon as she did, her eyes widened and she rushed over to Beau's side. She knelt down next to the bed Beau had been sleeping on, reached a hand out, and placed it on Beau’s cheek. Beau watched intently as Yasha’s eyes, one blue and one purple, full of fondness and relief, scanned Beau’s face. 

“How are you feeling?” Yasha asked her.

Beau took another deep breath and tried to sit up before grimacing in pain and abandoning the effort. “Fantastic. Just great. I feel like I could do anything. As long as it doesn’t require moving or breathing.”

Yasha gave her a small smile and helped Beau sit up, maneuvering her so that she was leaning up against the wall.

The movement hurt, but the pain was something Beau knew how to deal with. What was really getting her was the sheer amount of effort even the most basic of movements required. Her limbs felt heavy and her muscles were exhausted, as if she had just finished a marathon work out. Her body wanted to go back to sleep, but her mind, while muddled and foggy, was just starting to clear and needed to remain awake to do so. 

She instinctually rubbed her wrists and looked down at them. They were slightly red and bruised, but not nearly as bad as she was expecting. She knew the limits of Jester’s and Caduceus’s healing magic, and while that could accomplish a lot, there was some time that had gone into her healing. Her wrists hurt, but somehow Beau could tell it was a phantom pain. A psychosomatic ghost that was trying to pull her back to that place. She tried to push the pain from her mind. 

“How long has it been?”

“We found you 15 days ago.”

Beau nodded. “And… before that?” she asked hesitantly, not sure if she wanted to know the answer. 

Yasha looked down. “You were missing for 3 weeks.”

Beau nodded again. Three weeks. That was all? It had felt like longer. 

“Do you need anything? Food? Water?”

Beau hadn’t had a chance to start thinking about food or water yet. She felt like she had adapted to a scarcity of both during her imprisonment. “Uhh… some water might be nice?”

As Yasha went to get her a drink, Beau looked around the room she was in. She recognized it as one of the more private cabins on the Ball-Eater. A couple of beds, some storage, and no windows. Beau braced herself both physically and mentally, and pushed past her fatigue and lethargy until her feet hit the floor. She was just starting to attempt to stand up when Yasha turned back towards her, waterskin in hand.

“Beau! What are you doing?!” Yasha rushed over to her side and caught her just before her legs collapsed beneath her. Yasha guided Beau back onto the edge of the bed and sat next to her, offering her the water. 

Beau took a sip, mostly on her own with a little help lifting the waterskin to her lips, before turning to Yasha. “Please, Yasha,” Beau practically pleaded, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about sounding weak at that moment. She was weak. “It’s been five weeks. I was locked in a cell in a dungeon and now I’m in a small room beneath a ship. I need to feel like I’m not in a prison. I- I need to see the sky.” 

She looked at Yasha and saw understanding reflected in her eyes. Yasha was a person who spent most of her time outdoors with no walls to hold her in. Of course she would understand Beau’s need to feel freedom. 

She grabbed one of Beau’s hands and draped her arm around her shoulders, and then wrapped her own arm around Beau’s waist. “If it gets too much, just tell me, okay?”

Beau nodded, although she probably wouldn’t. They both knew she would likely push through the pain and fatigue until she collapsed. 

Yasha stood them both up and headed towards the door. Most of Beau’s weight was on Yasha, but with each step she felt it becoming a little easier. The stairs leading up to the deck of the ship were another story. Halfway up Beau needed to stop. Yasha was ready to pick her up and bring her back to her bed, but Beau shook her head. 

“Wait. I can do it. I just need a minute.” She closed her eyes and leaned against her friend, breathing heavily. After a moment, she shifted her weight as much as she could back to her feet. “Okay,” and they made it the rest of the way up the stairs. 

When Yasha opened the door, Beau was immediately blinded by the sunlight, squinting as they walked forward. A few steps out, she stopped, closed her eyes, and turned her face towards the sun, feeling the warmth she hadn’t felt in so long on her face. She took her moment there, feeling the sun and smelling the fresh air and let a smile ghost on her lips. 

She was brought back to reality by the sound of Jester’s voice. 

“Beau!” a quick moving blue figure immediately rushed over to her and practically knocked her over with a bone crushing hug. Yasha was the only thing that kept her upright. Beau winced in pain, but did manage to wrap her free arm around Jester and return the hug as affectionately as she could. 

“Careful, Jester,” Fjord made his way over as well. “Caduceus said she’d still be pretty tired and sore and to be gentle.”

Jester gasped, “Right! Sorry!” and she took a few steps back. “Caduceus said you were awake, but that we should probably wait to go see you so we didn’t overwhelm you, but here you are and I missed you so much and I love you so much and I couldn’t control my excitement!”

Beau smiled fondly. “I love you too, Jes. No harm done.”

“It’s good to see you standing, Beauregard.” Caleb and Nott had also made their way over. “How are you feeling? You had us all worried there for a little while.”

“I’ll be fine.” She tried to lighten the mood with her own morbid sense of humor, “Takes more than some torture and interrogation to keep me down, you know?”

She watched as her friends exchanged knowing looks that she couldn’t quite identify. But before she had the chance to enquire, she caught sight a person she was definitely not expecting to see standing just 10 feet behind her friends. A familiar bald, dark-skinned elf. 

“Dairon?”

“Hello Beauregard. It’s good to see you.” She walked up to where Beau and Yasha were standing. “Do you think you’re up to sit and talk for a minute?” 

“Uhh… sure,” Beau nodded, still thrown off by the fact that Dairon was there. On the Ball-Eater. With the Mighty Nein. 

Dairon walked to the side of Beau opposite Yasha and allowed Beau to lean on her as well.

“I’ve got her,” Dairon said to Yasha. “I promise I’ll return her soon.”

Beau felt like a piece of property, but didn’t have the effort to remark on it. She didn’t want to lean as heavily on her mentor as she had on her friend and was trying to take more steps of her own volition. It only took about two steps before she realized that wasn’t possible yet. She was already getting frustrated with her fatigued state. 

Dairon led them to a bench on the deck that was against a wall Beau could lean on. As they began to sit, Beau said, “Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but what are you doing here? You’ve never seemed to actually like my friends, and now you’re on a ship with them in the middle of the ocean.”

“Jester sent me a message saying you were missing. It was obvious something was very wrong, so I offered to help find you.” 

Beau smiled at her and teased, “Admit it, you were worried about me.” 

“Yes. I was.” The seriousness of Dairon’s answer threw Beau off. She looked down as a wave of guilt washed over her. 

“Look, I’m sorry I let you down. You taught me better than that. I never should have let them take me.”

Dairon put her hand on Beau’s shoulder and caught her downcast gaze. Beau saw more affection and emotion in Dairon’s eyes than she ever had before. “Beau. No. I could never be disappointed in you.” She dropped her hand. “You made it through whatever it was they did to you. That makes you strong and I’m proud of you.”

“But hey,” Beau tried making a joke again, apparently even more uncomfortable with emotion than she always thought Dairon was, “you did tell me not to die, so you can’t say I don’t listen!”

The same look she had seen her friends exchange just minutes ago crossed over Dairon’s face and Beau had a moment of realization of just how serious the situation had been. Dairon, however, moved the conversation on.  
“This had something to do with your father, didn’t it?”

Beau sighed. “Looks that way. I guess some important, and probably incriminating, documents were stolen out of his office and he immediately decided I took them. But I didn’t,” she added defensively. “I haven’t been back to Kamordah since the monks dragged me away. I haven’t so much as thought about my father in months. But of course, anything that goes wrong in his life is my fault. I guess he hired these people to try and beat the location out of me. Never has been one to get his hands dirty himself.”

Dairon nodded and recounted what she had found out to help Beau understand better. “The rumors circulating say that a box of his documents and possibly some other items were taken from a hidden safe in his office. He’s telling people that they are important for his business dealings, but others are saying that whatever is in the box could take down his entire empire. The thief got in and out the same way you used to sneak in and out as a child. Apparently, that’s all the ‘evidence’ he needed to convict you of the crime.” There was vitriol in her voice as she spoke of Beau’s father. “No one seems to know who actually took it or why they’re just sitting on it, but I have people keeping me informed with any updates.”

Beau bit her lower lip. She hated admitting she was scared, but she was. “Do you think he’ll send someone after me again?”

“I don’t know. He might. He’s scared and has no real leads. He thinks if you didn’t do it, you at least know who did. Stick with your friends. They’ll keep you safe. At least until you get your strength back again. They’re good people and they would travel to the nine hells for you if they needed to.”

Beau didn’t know how to respond to that. It surprised her how much it meant that Dairon approved of the Mighty Nein. Considering how not too long ago she told her not to get too close. So instead she just said, “Thanks for um, coming to find me. It, uh… it means a lot. What are you going to do now? I’m sure you don’t want to stick around here longer than you have to.”

“Your wizard friend has offered me use of his teleportation spell whenever I’m ready to leave. I’ll stick around a few more days and then be on my way.”

Beau nodded. She was relieved that Dairon wasn’t going to be leaving immediately. 

“When you’re feeling stronger, have Jester send me a message and we can start your training again.” 

Beau groaned and let her head fall back against the wall behind her. “Ugh. Any clue when that will be? I can barely sit up, let alone walk or punch people.”

Beau could have sworn she saw Dairon smile. “Something tells me it won’t be long. Your tall pink friend seemed to think that even after waking up, you’d be bedridden for at least another week, and yet here you are. You’re tough and determined.”  
Beau gave a quick laugh. “That’s a nice way of saying ‘stubborn’.”

“That description works as well. But my point is that you’re going to be fine, Beauregard. Just remember my advice. Be patient. And keep not dying.”

“I will do my best.”

As Dairon stood up and began to walk away, Beau looked over her shaved head and called back out to her. “Hey. Before you leave, do you think you can help me clean this up?” She runs her hand through her own grown out undercut.

“I think that can be done. But not right now. I think if I pull a blade out anywhere near you, your barbarian friend will have my head.” She looked like she was going to walk away again, but turned back to Beau instead said, “She cares for you. Yasha. She hasn’t left your side since she found you. She carried you all the way back to this ship and then kept vigil by your bedside. Keep her around as long as you can. She’ll have your back.”

As Dairon walked away, Beau looked to find Yasha. She was talking to Caduceus, who was holding two cups of tea, but was watching Beau and Dairon intently. As soon as Dairon walked away, she took one of the cups from Caduceus and headed over to sit next to Beau, handing her the beverage. 

“Everything okay?”

“Getting there, I think.” She took a sip of the hot tea. The sun had started setting and she was beginning to get cold. She leaned against Yasha’s shoulder, both for comfort and for warmth as a slight shiver ran through her. She curled slightly in on herself and held the warm mug a little closer. 

“You’re cold,” Yasha noticed as she took off her own cloak and wrapped it around Beau’s shoulders. Beau’s reversible cloak as well as her bo staff had gone missing when she was taken. She felt naked without either. Yasha left her arm around Beau, pulling her in closer and rubbing her upper arm to produce more heat. “I told Fjord that I thought it would be better for you to stay in a room where you could get to the deck of the ship without having to go up too many stairs. He’s letting us stay in the captain’s quarters. There are windows and a balcony.”

She added the last part as though it were an afterthought, but Beau knew it was her main motivation. What stood out to Beau was the “us” in Yasha’s statement. She thought back to what Dairon had said about Yasha carrying her back to the ship and not leaving her side. Beau had been attracted to Yasha immediately and knew how her own feelings for the woman had grown, but she never thought Yasha returned her affections. 

“We can head there whenever you’re ready,” added Yasha. 

Beau looked up at the sky. The stars were just starting to come out and Beau found herself wanting to stare at them for a little while. “Maybe in a few minutes.” She took another sip of her tea and leaned further into Yasha as she looked up and watched as more and more stars lit up the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys! Over 150 kudos already?! Critters really are the best! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I think it's my favorite so far (but I might like the next one even more)! 
> 
> Also, I may need some assistance before I post the next chapter. I know Beau and Caleb have had a couple of heart to hearts during the show. I'm trying to find a specific one where they talk about not having a choice in caring for your friends or something? Does anyone remember what episode that was in?? Bonus points for a timestamp!
> 
> UPDATE: Thank you to Awesome_Sauce432 for knowing exactly what scene I was talking about and finding it for me!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Spoilers for campaign 2 episode 55*

Beau didn’t notice when her eyes began to drift close. She didn’t realize she was falling asleep until she felt Yasha lift her up and start carrying her. She tried to wake herself up. 

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep. I can walk.”

Yasha did not make any movements to put her down and continued carrying her towards the captain’s quarters. “You’ve done enough today. Go back to sleep, Beauregard. Let me take care of you.”

Beau knew this wasn’t a battle she was going to win, and if she were honest with herself, she didn’t think she would have actually been able to walk. She had thought her muscles were tired when she woke up, but the little amount of activity she had done had completely worn her out to a state she didn’t previously think possible. So instead, she rested her head against Yasha’s chest and closed her eyes again. 

She didn’t immediately fall asleep though and was still awake when Yasha laid her in the bed, helping her get under the blankets. She sat on the bed beside Beau. “Sleep, Beauregard. I’ll be here when you wake up.” She stood up and started walking towards a chair across the room. 

“Yasha?” She waited for her to turn back around. “I came close, didn’t I. To dying.” It wasn’t a question.

“Beyond close.” Beau gave Yasha an expectant look as she sat back down on the bed. “The second day we were back on the ship, you just stopped breathing. I tried to heal you and when that didn’t work, I yelled for Jester. She said your heart was not beating. Everyone else realized something was wrong and had come into the room. Thankfully, Caduceus still had his diamond. Jester practically ripped it out of his hand and started a resurrection ritual.

“It wasn’t like when Caduceus died though. You didn’t immediately come back. Jester said something about your soul having gone too far from your body and that we needed to reach out to you to pull it back. Caleb had turned Frumpkin back into that tiny owl and had him sit on your chest while he tried to talk to you. Dairon placed something in your hand, and then whispered something in your ear that the rest of us could not hear. And I- I said some things to try and get you to come back to us as well. The gem shattered and when you didn’t start breathing right away, we thought that was it. We were all so relieved when you finally took a breath. But we were also scared. You were still unconscious, and we did not have any more diamonds with us. If you died again, that would have been it.”

Beau took in everything Yasha had just told her, and all she could do was look up at the ceiling and nod. “I died,” she said aloud to herself. The ceiling above her started to blur. 

“Oh, Beau,” Yasha whispered as she laid down next to Beau and took her in her arms, pulling her close. 

It was then that Beau realized that the blurriness she was seeing was because her eyes had filled with tears and she was shaking. She turned so she could bury her face into Yasha’s shoulder and allowed herself to sob uncontrollably. In many ways, Beau had never left her rebellious teenage phase. Part of her still thought she was invincible. Sure, she had been knocked down in battle, but she always got back up. Knowing she had actually died was a reality check that she wasn’t prepared for. 

“Yasha, I’m not ready to die,” she managed to get out between her sobs. 

Yasha wrapped her arms more tightly around Beau. “You’re not, Beaureguard. You’re not going to die. I won’t let you.”

***

Yasha held Beau until she fell asleep, and then for longer than she probably should have after. Eventually, she stood up, pulled the blankets further up to cover Beau’s shoulders, and sat in a chair right next to the bed. 

She thought back to that night when Beau had died. She had been watching the rise and fall of her chest. Then, all of a sudden, it stopped. Yasha panicked. She rushed over and tried to shake Beau awake. She tried her healing magic and pleading to the Storm Lord, but to no avail. 

When she called for Jester, she yelled so loud, she was sure the entire ship shook. Within seconds Jester burst into the room, followed shortly by Fjord and then the rest of the Nein.

“Yasha? What happened? What’s wrong?”

“She’s not breathing. I can’t get her to wake up.” Yasha’s voice was shaky and she tears were starting to drip down her cheeks. She didn’t wipe them away. She just clung tightly to Beau’s hand and looked desperately at Jester for any solution. 

Jester tried to cast her own healing spell, and when it didn’t take, she looked her over and informed the others, “She’s dead.”

A heavy silence fell over the room as Jester turned around to face the group. Yasha watched as Jester’s eyes locked on Caduceus. 

“Do you still have your diamond?!”

“Yeah. It’s right here.” He was barely able to pull it out of the pouch he kept it in before Jester snatched it out of his hand and started her resurrection spell on Beau. 

They all waited for several tense seconds before Jester nodded and, in a small worried voice said, “Yeah. Okay okay okay.” Her voice got a little louder, “The Traveler says that her soul is very far away and we need to call it back. A few of you need to come talk to her and help her find her way back to us.”

Caleb was the first to take a step forward, snapping the small owl Frumpkin into existence on Beau’s chest.

“I know you liked the time you spent with owl Frumpkin. I turned him back into an owl so he could keep you company when you woke up, but for that to happen, you need to wake up. You told me once that I don’t get to choose who cares about me. It seems like I don’t get to choose who I care about either. If I did, I would not care for any of you. To keep you all safe. But that sentiment alone is enough to show I care about you. Because I do care for you, Beau. And I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you safe from this. But you need to come back to us. We made a pact, you and I. You have to keep me in line. And maybe it’s selfish of me to ask that of you, but you’ve always put the safety of the rest of us before your own. So do that now, ja? Come back to us, Beauregard. We still need you.”

He took a step back and Dairon, who no one had seen enter the room, stepped forward. “May I?” When no one protested, she took a piece of paper out of her pocket, and Yasha saw some strange symbols on it before she folded it up. She recognized it as the same code Beau and Caleb were always using. She placed the folded piece in Beau’s hand and leaned down to whisper in her ear. Yasha couldn’t hear what she had said, but after a minute she stood back up and stepped back, looking to Yasha.

Everyone was looking expectantly towards Yasha. She took a deep breath and stepped forward, untying something from around her wrist. They had found the ribbon Beau used to tie her hair up on the ground not far from where she was taken. Yasha had been wearing it tied around her wrist ever since. Later she would do her best to knot Beau's hair into a bun and put the ribbon back where it belonged, but for now, she just tied it around Beau’s wrist. She grabbed Beau’s hand again, kneeling down so their faces were level. Her other hand reached out to Beau’s face. 

She wasn’t sure what to say so she just pressed her forehead against Beau’s and whispered, “Come back to me, Beauregard.” She kissed Beau’s cheek and stepped back to wait with the rest of the group. 

They watched as the gem shattered, just as it had with Caduceus. But then, nothing. The next 30 seconds were the longest of their lives. Jester’s hands were still held over Beau, but they were shaking. Fjord knelt down next to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. She turned towards him, buried her face in his chest, and they held each other. Nott was holding onto Caleb’s leg, while the wizard just stared at their dead friend. Frumpkin flew back over to Beau’s chest again, tilting his head and hooting softly at her. Caduceus had his hand on Caleb’s shoulder and whispered, “We did all we could.” Dairon had turned away and clenched her hands into tight fists. 

Yasha was frozen in place. She couldn’t do this again. Not after Zuala. Not after Molly. She couldn’t lose another person she cared for. She was ready to run again. She’d jump off the ship and swim to shore if she had to, but she had to get away. She’d go back to travelling on her own, going where the Storm Lord guided her. She wouldn’t tie herself to any more people she could lose. 

Then, Beau took a breath, and Yasha let out the one she had been holding. A murmur of relief past over the party. They all took a moment while Caduceus walked up to and checked over Beau. 

“She’s not out of the woods yet. I think until she finally wakes up, we have to accept that this might happen again. And we don’t have any more diamonds.” He turned to look between Dairon and Yasha. “You’ve been able to get her responsive enough to eat and drink. I’m going to see what’s on the ship and make a tea or a soup that has the nutrients she might need to get better. Or at least stay alive. Think you can get her to drink at least once a day?”

Yasha couldn’t find her voice yet, but nodded.

“We will do everything we can,” Dairon said as she stood next to Yasha. 

The next two weeks were long for both Dairon and Yasha. Yasha barely left Beau’s side and on the rare occasion where she did sleep or take some time to herself, Dairon stood vigil. The rest of the Mighty Nein rotated in and out, keeping them company. Dairon and Yasha were true to their word and managed to get Beau to consume whatever Caduceus gave them almost every day. 

Although they spent a lot of time together, Dairon and Yasha didn’t talk much during this time, but they gained a mutual respect for each other. They both realized how they both cared for Beau, in equal, but different ways. 

***

Yasha was pulled out of her memories by a quiet, but panicked whisper.

“Yasha? Yasha?!”

Yasha quickly stood from the chair she was keeping vigil in and was next to Beau in two steps. “I’m here, Beau. You’re safe.”

“Can’t see you,” Beau’s eyes were wide. Her breathing was rapid and her words came out breathy and short. 

Shit. Of course, Yasha thought. Her Light spell had worn off and Beau’s human eyes couldn’t see in the dark. They had found her goggles with her ribbon, but Caduceus had been borrowing them in the meantime and no one had been super concerned with getting them back to their rightful owner just yet. She quickly cast the spell again and watched as Beau’s eyes and breathing returned to normal as her eyes locked with Yasha’s.

After a few moments, Beau strenuously pushed herself to a sitting position and rubbed her eyes with her palms. “I wasn’t sure if it was real or not,” she admitted, “being here and not there anymore.” Her hands then went to her wrists and started rubbing at them.

Yasha recognized the motion. She had found herself doing it after being taken by Lorenzo. She would wake up from a nightmare and swear she could still feel the bindings on her wrist. She would rub and scratch at them until she made the skin pink and raw. 

Yasha reached out and grabbed her hand to stop her. “It’s real. You’re safe.”

Beau looked down at their hands, intertwining her fingers with Yasha's. “They tried using illusion magic to get me to talk. They knew what you all look like and would transform themselves into you, or Jester, or Caleb, or Fjord. They thought I would tell one of you what they wanted to know. When that didn’t work, they made you part of the torture process. I don’t know if they thought your betrayal would get me to talk or if they just found it fun. They made me think it was you more often than any of the others.” She looked into Yasha’s eyes, flicking her gaze back and forth between teal and violet. “But they got your eyes wrong. They made them both blue.” 

Yasha let her look at her eyes for a little while before reaching out and placing her hand on Beau’s cheek. She leaned forward and rested her forehead against Beau’s. “I would never do anything to hurt you. You know that, right?”

Beau’s eyes closed and a tear rolled down her cheek, but Yasha felt her nod. Yasha pulled back and used her thumb to wipe away the wetness on her cheek, letting her hand linger on Beau’s face. “Do you think you can go back to sleep?” 

Beau nodded again and Yasha helped her lay back down. As she went to stand up and go back to her chair, Beau reached out and grabbed her wrist. 

“Wait. When was the last time you actually slept? And I mean in a bed, not on a chair watching over me.”

“About five weeks ago.”

“Lie with me? Get some real sleep? You’ll need your strength if you plan to carry me around again all day tomorrow,” she joked before getting serious again. “Plus, this way I’ll know you’re still here when I wake up.”

Yasha couldn’t deny such a request. Especially not from Beau. She kicked off her boots and laid down next to her friend. Beau let out a relaxed sigh and closed her eyes. Beau grabbed Yasha’s hand and the two interlaced their fingers before Yasha also closed her eyes. Maybe “friend” wasn’t the right word anymore…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi critters! A couple of notes here:
> 
> First, I wrote this before their shopping episode the other week, so they hadn't bought the new diamonds yet. 
> 
> Second, I've tried to be pretty consistent about uploading a new chapter every week or so. Unfortunately this was as far as I got in my pre-writing before I started posting, and things have gotten crazy at work. I promise I will keep working on it and get the rest out as quickly as possible! But it will probably end up being a few weeks between chapters. I will do my best to make the wait worth it!


	5. Chapter 5

When Beau woke the next morning, the first thing she saw was Yasha, who was already awake and looking at her.

_Oh, I could get way too used to this._

“Good morning,” Yasha greeted her.

“Mmmmm,” Beau groaned. Morning? Maybe. The sun coming through the windows was present, but not high. Good? That was a different issue. “One of those words might be true.” She turned her head to bury her face into the pillow.

“How are you feeling?” She could hear the smile on Yasha’s voice. Gods she had missed that smile.

Beau sighed and sat up. It still took her a lot of effort and caused her some pain, but with the support of Yasha’s hands on her shoulders, she was able to do it mostly on her own. She was still half asleep as she tried to figure out the answer to Yasha’s question. She still felt sore and tired. But not as much so as yesterday. Then there was how she was doing emotionally, and even she wasn’t sure how that was. So she took the easy way out. “Still tired. Hungry.”

“I’ll go grab you some food,” Yasha said and headed out of the room.

At first Beau relaxed in the silence and solitude, but the longer Yasha was away, the more anxious she became. She pulled the covers closer to her as her eyes started darting around the room. Every moving shadow and crashing wave held danger coming to take her back to that hellhole. When Yasha opened the door again, Beau jumped at the sudden sound and movement.

“I’m sorry,” Yasha said gently. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I brought food.” She slowly approached the bed and placed the tray of food next to Beau, being sure to make eye contact with her as she approached.

Beau didn’t fully relax until she was able to distinguish the colors of Yasha’s eyes. At that point she let out a breath and ran her hands though her hair. “Fuck. Sorry. I guess I’m still a bit jumpy.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I understand.”

Beau looked to the tray of food Yasha had brought her. Its was quite the spread, filled with fruits and meats and some stale pastries that had definitely been in Jester's bag for some time now. At first, Beau was hesitant to eat it. It had been so long since she had eaten. And what food they had given her was rotten or attached to a beating.

She picked at the small bowl of fruits for a moment while Yasha just watched in silence, letting her do what she needed to. Finally, Beau brought a piece of it to her lips and took a bite. She closed her eyes tightly as she chewed and forced herself to swallow. To her delight, it tasted amazing! And no pain came to her afterwards. She looked back to Yasha and smiled before grabbing another piece. And another. And another.

She was shoveling the food into her mouth as fast as she could manage. When she started to grab for the meat, Yasha grabbed her wrist to stop her and Beau practically whined. She locked eyes with Yasha, confused and pleading. She swallowed what was in her mouth. “I’m so hungry.”

“I know,” Yasha’s eyes were fully of pity. “But if you don’t slow down, you’re going to make yourself sick. I won’t take it away from you, but I’m going to suggest you pause for a few minutes and make sure you can keep that all down.”

“One piece of bacon?” Beau gave Yasha her best puppy dog eyes.

Yasha smiled, “One piece of bacon,” and she released Beau’s wrist.

Beau smiled as she took the piece of bacon and moaned as she bit into it. Gods she loved bacon. As much as she wanted to immediately eat the rest of what was on the plate, she was true to her word to Yasha and held off. She was glad she did. It wasn’t long after that she started to feel nauseous.

“Okay,” she told Yasha as she laid back down on the bed and curled in on herself a bit. “You were right. I shouldn’t have eaten so much so fast.”

Yasha moved the food tray off the bed and onto a side table. Beau felt her heart drop. Despite her nausea, despite knowing Yasha would never do anything to hurt her, watching food being taken away made a part of her fear that it would be a long time before she got it back again.

“As soon as you want it again, just let me know and I’ll move it back.”

Beau wasn’t sure if she was that transparent, or if Yasha was just that good at understanding her. She took a breath and tried to relax, but the pain in her stomach was making that difficult. She felt the bed sink behind her as Yasha laid down next to her.

“Your stomach hurts?”

Beau nodded. She didn’t think was going to puke, but then again, she’d be willing to try if it made the pain go away and she could eat again.  
Yasha shifted behind her. “Just try to relax, Beauregard.”

Beau felt as Yasha’s hand snaked around her waist and her large, open palm came to rest on Beau’s stomach. The pain started to dull as it was replaced with a fluttering warmth. Beau wasn’t sure if it was Yasha’s magic that had caused the sensation, or just Yasha. She sighed and closed her eyes as she leaned back against Yasha, letting her take her pain away.

***

Beau woke about an hour later, and this time she was awake before Yasha. Her nausea was gone and she was hungry again. She gently shifted to the end of the bed so she could reach where Yasha had left what was remaining of her meal earlier. She took a few more pieces of now cold bacon and ate them slowly. As much as she still wanted to scarf it down, she didn’t want to deal with the nausea and pain that came with it again. Although as she looked over her shoulder at Yasha, she thought she might be able to deal with the pain if that was the result.

Beau slowly pushed herself to her feet, using the one of the posts on the four-poster bed to support her. He legs were shaky, but they were able to support her. She leaned heavily on the bed for the first few steps, but then was able to take a few shaky steps on her own. She made her way over to the mirror in the room and really took a look at herself for the first time in five weeks.

Beau was taken aback by what she saw. Her imprisonment was evident all over her body. Her eyes were dark and sunken. Her skin had a pallor to it. And she looked like she was swimming in the clothes she was wearing. They had taken most of hers before they chained her up, leaving her in just her chest wraps and under shorts. "Maximum skin access," they had said. Apparently there were still some lines those guys wouldn’t cross. Now she was wearing a shirt that she thinks was Yasha’s and pants that may have actually belonged to Caleb at one point.

She pulled off the shirt she was wearing. She had always been proud of her body and worked hard to maintain her physique. But now her abs were diminished and her ribs were prominent. Her hipbones protruded and were barely enough the hold up the pants, even with the drawstring pulled as tight as it was. She ran her hand over the scars that were all over her body. There were marks from cuts and burns everywhere. She knew that most of these were from early on in her imprisonment, before they made the switch from physical to psychological. She could only imagine what she looked like when they had found her, before Jester and Caduceus healed some of her more recent wounds.

As she looked at her scarred and emaciated body, she wished that was as deep as her wounds went.

She pulled the shirt back on and caught Yasha’s eyes in the mirror. She had woken up and was watching Beau with concern.

“Are you okay?”

“Not really,” Beau admitted. “And I think I’m stuck.” She leaned forward onto the vanity in front of the mirror, no longer trusting her shaking legs to hold her up.

Yasha was by her side in a moment and supported Beau back to the bed. “How is your stomach feeling?”

“Better. I think I can eat some more.”

Yasha brought the food tray to her, and Beau started to slowly pick at the meats again.

She ate in a heavy silence. She was extremely grateful that Yasha didn’t ask her anything about what she was thinking or how she was feeling. She wasn’t sure how she would have answered. She was torn. Her friends could help her with her physical injuries. They had already taken care of her cuts and bruises and burns. Her weakness was evident by looking at her. They would all know what to do to help her with that.

But how were they supposed to help her with the injuries they couldn’t see? Part of her wanted to tell them everything. Everything the mage had done. Everything she had seen. Everything she was scared of. But a bigger part of her wanted to keep it all inside. To not let her friends have any idea about the horrors she had experienced. To not burden them with that information.

The thoughts and memories settled heavily in her stomach and she pushed the rest of her food away. Yasha moved the tray back out of the way as Beau pulled her knees to her chest. She started rubbing her wrists and rocking back and forth.

 

Yasha turned around to see the shaking, rocking woman and sat down a few inches away from her.

“Beau?”

Beau looked at her, her eyes filled with tears she was refusing to let fall. Yasha knew she was remembering something terrible, but hoped she was still present enough to know Yasha was there to help and not hurt her.

“May I hold you?”

Still rocking and shaking, Beau hesitated for a moment before nodding and shifting her gaze to stare off in front of her again.

Yasha shifted closer to Beau and wrapped an arm around the smaller woman’s shoulders. She held Beau close against her and brought a stop to the rocking, but not the violent shaking. Beau’s fervor in rubbing and scratching at her wrists increased, but Yasha reached out and squeezed her hand. Beau squeezed back as tightly as she could, grounding herself to Yasha.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Yasha figured she knew the answer, but wanted to make sure Beau knew she was there to listen whenever she was ready.

Beau squeezed her eyes shut and let a few tears slip by as she shook her head.

“Okay,” Yasha whispered in her ear. “You don’t have to. Just know that I’m here whenever you’re ready. I’m here and you’re safe.”

As Yasha held Beau and Beau tried to push the flashbacks from her mind, a tiny owl flew through the open window and landed on Beau’s knee. Frumpkin hopped a couple times, hooted, and ruffled his feathers. Beau reached out a shaky hand and stroked his head. She couldn’t help but smile at the tiny Fey creature as she continued to pet him. She rested her head on Yasha’s shoulder, finally back in her present mind. She wondered if Caleb was watching right now. In case he was, she quietly mouthed “thank you" to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit shorter than I would have preferred, but I wanted to get this out to you guys. Some of Beau processing what she's been through and some shameless fluff. Next chapter I hope to pull in more of the other characters and dig deeper into what's going on with Beau!


	6. Chapter 6

Beau’s first few days awake were a lot of the same. She ate what she could, moved around as much as her body would allow her, and then pushed herself too far. She was rarely alone, but she was okay with that. Alone meant time with her thoughts. Time to remember. With her friends around, she was able to maintain the visage of a calm exterior. She was distracted and safe. 

Jester was the best at keeping her busy and her mind occupied. She had never been so thankful for the tiefling's ability to just keep talking without anything to really say. She told Beau about what had happened while she was gone, stories of her childhood, how excited she was for the upcoming meeting with other Traveler followers. She even managed to convince Orly to tell them all stories of what he and the crew had been doing at sea while the Mighty Nein had been away. On one notable evening when they were eating dinner with the entire crew, Jester convinced them to dramatically reenact battles that probably never happened, but were entertaining nonetheless. 

When she was in some of her darker moments and didn’t want to be around the noise, she found solace in Caleb’s presence. The first time she showed up at his door, he was confused. But there was a look in her eyes that he recognized as she glanced at his unwrapped arms. He just nodded and stepped to the side to let her in. 

“I was just about to get some reading done. Would you like to join?” and he handed her the first book he could reach. 

Nott often joined them as she and Caleb read in silence. Beau could tell Nott was concerned; her motherly instincts took over as she cast sidelong glances towards Beau, who pretended not to notice. Beau was constantly nervous Nott was going to ask questions she wasn’t ready to answer yet, but she never did.

She also spent some more quiet and relaxed moments standing on the deck of the ship with Fjord and/or Caduceus, looking out at the endless ocean. Fjord promised her that as soon as she was up for it, her role as first mate was still waiting for her. 

“Hey there, first mate. Here to take over?” he had asked her when she walked up to him standing at the wheel one late afternoon. 

“Remember that day Yasha was attacked by the ball of lightning and you had me take over for the night? And when you came back in the morning I was uhhh… resting my eyes?” 

Fjord laughed. “Yup. Yup I do.” 

“It would be a lot like that again if I were to take over right now,” she smiled at him and leaned against a nearby post. 

“Well, just know that when you’re up to it again, you’re still my first mate.” 

“Thanks, Fjord,” and they were silent, Fjord steering the ship, and Beau staring off into the water. 

Beau also filled some of her time with Dairon. She reshaved Beau’s hair and helped train her in more nonphysical monk techniques. Beau had always hated meditation. She had never been able to still her body or quiet her mind for any length of time, an ineptitude she had regretted not long into her captivity. She had been able to reach a zen level once where she could barely feel the pain they had been inflicting on her, but was only able to remain there for a few minutes. She would give anything to be able to clear her mind now and forget about the past several weeks, even if it were only for a few moments. She tried harder than she ever had before in these sessions with Dairon, but it didn’t work and her mind started to wander quickly. She knew Dairon could tell, but didn’t push. When she got too anxious and fidgety, Dairon shifted techniques and started helping her gain back some of her strength with light stretches and exercises. 

 

All seemed to be going relatively well, at least during the day. The nights were harder when it was just her and Yasha, and the now ever-present light weight of Frumpkin on her shoulder. In the quiet of the night without all her friends to distract her, she often had flashbacks and woke up multiple times per night from the nightmares. Yasha always woke up with her, helping her come to her senses and feel safer. Beau was thankful for Yasha, but also felt guilty that she was keeping Yasha from sleeping as well. 

“I’m sorry,” Beau apologized once she regained her breath after a particularly bad one on her fourth night. “You should just go stay in another room so you can actually get some real sleep. I’ll be fine.” 

“Beauregard, you just woke up from a nightmare, and it took you 40 minutes to calm down from the resulting panic attack. I’m not leaving you to do that alone.” 

Beau sighed and leaned her head against Yasha’s shoulder and Yasha immediately took Beau’s hand in hers. 

“You’ve been so good to me,” Beau stated. “Why?” 

Yasha looked at her confused, “Because I care for you.” 

“Yeah, but why?” a self-deprecating question Beau hadn’t meant to ask out loud, but did. Beau had always felt like a burden. Probably because she’d been treated like one by her parents, and then by Zeenoth, for so many years. Sure, her friends had been helping with that, but part of her believed that they too would leave her as soon as she became an inconvenience for them. And she certainly felt like an inconvenience now. 

She couldn’t wrap her mind around why Yasha was still sticking around so fiercely. She acknowledged their flirtation but had never expected anything to come from it. She hadn’t even thought of her attraction to the woman as anything much more than physical until recently when she realized just how safe she felt in Yasha's arms. 

Yasha paused, looking over her face and gave a soft smile. “You remind me of someone I used to know.” 

Beau waited in silence to see if she would continue. 

“Her name was Zuala. She was a member of my tribe. She was strong and stubborn and spoke her mind without caring what anyone else thought. And she was my wife.” 

Beau had not been expecting that. “Oh wow, Yasha. I had no idea. Wh… what happened?” she asked tentatively.

“We got married in secret. We weren’t supposed to. I was lined up to marry a different member of the tribe. A man I could continue our tribe’s legacy with. When the Matron found out, they killed her and I ran. I was a coward.” 

“Shit, Yash. That like, super sucks. But if you hadn’t run, they might have killed you too.” 

“At least then I would have been with her and not worrying about how I promised my life to someone, but now have feelings for someone else.” 

Beau had no words. 

Yasha continued, “I lost Zuala. I lost Mollymauk. I can’t lose you too, Beaureguard.” 

“I’m sorry,” was all Beau was able to say. It came out as barely a whisper.

Yasha just turned her head and placed her lips against Beau’s temple. A warmth spread throughout her body as she sighed and leaned further into the touch. 

 

It was on the sixth night when it happened. When they eventually looked back on that day, they would realize that it had been inevitable. But it was because of what happened earlier that evening that had made the events of the night so much worse. 

It was a quieter dinner with just the Nein when Beau finally asked what happened the day they rescued her. Yasha tensed. Not only was she unsure if Beau was ready to hear it, but she herself was trying to forget that day. How scared she was. How sure she was that Beau wasn’t going to survive. 

She looked over at Caleb and Fjord, both of whom also looked hesitant. Jester, however, had no such qualms. She immediately went into describing how Dairon had heard about these mercenaries who would do whatever they were asked to as long as they were paid, but how it was her father (as she was still referring to The Gentleman that no matter how often he denied it) who figured out where their base of operations was. 

When she got to describing the battle, Nott got into the recounting of it as well. They told Beau how “they ambushed the base when they were least expecting and Caleb immediately hit a bunch of them with a fireball!” And how when more guards came up the stairs, “Fjord summoned the demon he always calls upon in battle to keep the additional forces occupied!” And just how “badass Dairon was under the effects of Caleb’s Haste spell!” And how “Yasha was the angriest she had ever been and took half of the guards out single handedly!”

Fjord, Caleb, and Caduceus mostly remained quiet during the retelling, only offering comments when Jester or Nott were exaggerating what had actually happened. Yasha had her eyes on Beau the entire time.

“And after Yasha slaughtered the warden with the keys, she ran down the stairs to find you,” Jester animatedly told Beau closer to the end of the tale, “Dairon did that thing you always do where you hit someone and they stop moving for a few seconds to the one with the war hammer and took him out with a few more blows to the face! And Fjord ‘Eldritched Blaaaaast',” she mimicked Fjord’s accent, “ed the one with the funny hat while I hit him with my lollipop and he finally fell too! And out of no where Nott hit the shitty bard with an arrow right through the eyeballll and then followed Yasha!! But while we were all distracted, the other mage dimension doored away and we couldn’t figure out where he went,” she added with a pout. “But anyway, that’s when Nott came up to tell me Yasha found you and-" 

“Wait,” Beau cut her off. “The mage got away? Which one? Was it the human?” she asked anxiously. 

“No,” Caleb offered. “It was the elf. With long blonde hair that was pulled back into a ponytail. I tried to counterspell him, but it didn’t work.” 

Beau tried to keep a calm expression as she nodded in understanding, but Yasha watched as the color drained from her face. 

“Beau?” she asked cautiously. 

Beau stood up from the table they were all eating at. “I’m actually not very hungry. I’m going to turn in for the night. I’ll see you all in the morning!” She was trying to sound cheerful, but everyone could tell it was a fake cheerful. And she walked away before anyone could say anything to stop her. 

The rest of the Nein exchanged worried looks before Yasha followed a few moments later.

That night did not go well for anyone, but least of all for Beau.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for a) how long it takes me to post new chapters, and b) that I left you on a cliff hanger and it'll likely take me forever again to get the next one up. But it's going to be a big chapter and I want to do it well! Thank you all for sticking around and all the comments and kudos you've left! You're all amazing!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and Happy Spooky Day!! I'm back with another chapter!! I apologize for how long this took. 
> 
> CW: This chapter goes into more detail about what happened to Beau during the 3 weeks she was held captive. This includes both physical and emotional torture. If you don't want to read that section, I recommend just reading to the first break. That should give you the general idea of what happened without too much of the details.

When Yasha got to their room, Beau was already under the blankets with her eyes closed. But her body was far too tense to be asleep. Yasha sat on the bed next to her.

“I know you’re not asleep.”

At first Yasha wasn’t sure if Beau was going to keep pretending. Or maybe she would admit to being awake, but keep her mask on and pretend to be fine. To Yasha’s relief and surprise, she did neither. Yasha watched as Beau sat up and started picking at a lose string on the quilt, never meeting Yasha’s eye. It was clear she was preoccupied and distressed. Yasha was grateful that Beau was able to show vulnerability around her.

It wasn’t long before Beau’s hands made their way to her wrists. Yasha hadn’t interacted with the mage at all in the battle and didn’t get any sort of ideas of what he was capable of. None of the others had mentioned anything about him seeming exceptionally powerful. But clearly he was capable of some terrible things if hearing he was still alive was having this effect on Beau.

Yasha didn’t reach out to her. She could tell that physical comfort wasn’t something that would help Beau right now. Her body language hinted that it would have the opposite effect.

“Tell me what you’re thinking, Beauregard.”

It was several moments before Beau responded. Still looking down she asked, “When the Iron Shepherds had you, was it just physical, or did they, like, fuck with your mind too?”

Yasha hadn’t spoken much about her own abduction. She didn’t like to think back to it. Not because of the torture, which was bad but manageable, but more because of how useless and guilty she felt that she hadn’t been able to protect Fjord and Jester from also being taken and hurt. Or to protect Molly from dying. “No. It was just physical. But you guys found us pretty quickly. At least compared to…” the rest of her sentence hung heavy in the air. “They didn’t have time to do much more.”

At first Yasha wasn’t sure Beau was even listening to her, but after a minute, she spoke up again.

“Once they realized that their conventional means of interrogation weren’t going to get me to talk, they called in a ‘specialist'.”

“The mage?” Yasha asked.

Beau nodded. “He would use magic to make himself look like one of you guys. At first, I would think you were there to rescue me. But then you’d pull out a sword, or a dagger, or a cigarette. ‘Just tell them what they want to know, Beauregard, and this can all be over.’ The voices weren’t perfect, but they had done their research well enough. After a few weeks, or maybe it was only days, I’m not really sure, he got really creative.”

* * *

Beau wasn’t entirely sure how long it had been. A few days. Maybe a week. She was dangling by her wrists from chains attached to the ceiling. Occasionally she’d wrap her hands around the chains a pull her body up to relieve some on the pressure on her aching wrists and shoulders. She could only pull herself up a few inches though as they had attached her ankles to the floor after she managed to stun on of her ‘interrogators' with a well-timed kick to the chest. She was tired and hungry and every part of her body ached (and not in the way she enjoyed).

She heard the keys rattle by her cell door and tried to muster whatever strength she had left to steel her mind and body. As the door creaked open, Beau lifted her head, determined to still make eye contact with her captors. To show them that it was going to take more than a little physical pain to break her. She’d basically been training for this her whole life.

When she looked up, her heart swelled.

“Beau?” said a familiar Nicodranas accent.

“Jester,” Beau breathed a sigh of relief. “Nice of you to finally join the party. As fun as it’s been, care to help me out of this hellhole?”

“I’d love to,” she said, but made no movements towards helping Beau.

“Well?” Beau intoned impatiently.

“Well, I’ve been talking with the rest of the group and we just don’t think you’ve been that much of an asset recently.”

Beau’s heart dropped. “Jester, what are you-"

“I mean,” Jester cut her off. “We all like you and everything, well, some of us anyway, but there’s just nothing special about you, you know? And were fighting bigger and badder monsters. And you fall unconscious a lot and then I have to heal you. I could be using my magic for more powerful stuff, you know?”

Beau swallowed back tears that had been threatening to spill over. “Is this really the time? Can’t we talk about this later? Like, maybe when I’m not tied up in a dungeon cell?” Beau was almost proud at how steady her voice sounded.

Jester just shook her head. “We decided that it’s better if you stay here. We figured you’d just follow us around like a stray puppy. We made a deal with the people who have you that we could come and explain why we won’t be saving you this time.”

Beau’s confusion only grew. Jester would gladly take in any stray puppy they came across. “Jes,” Beau tried not to plead, “what the fuck is going on? I thought we were friends.”

Jester smiled. “I know you did. But there’s good news! If you tell us where the box they’re looking for is, they promised to let you go!”

Beau rolled her eyes, “I’ve already told them a million times. I don’t know! I don’t even know what box they’re talking about.”

Jester's smile faded. “You could have made this easy, Beau. You never were very helpful.”

Jester took a few steps back and pulled something out of her pocket. Beau couldn’t see what it was, but it glinted in the little light that penetrated the cell as Jester performed a series of movements that looked much more like something Caleb would do and mumbled something under her breath.

All of a sudden, a swarm of daggers appeared, started spinning, and made their way over to Beau. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, trying not to cry out at the quickly spinning blades sliced through her skin. She instinctually tried to get out of the area, but her bindings held strong. Once she realized that her thrashing about was just increasing the amount of damage the blades were inflicting, she changed tactics and tried to remain as still as possible.

It lasted for about a minute before the daggers faded away and the only sign they had ever been there was the bleeding cuts all over Beau’s body and the sting they left behind. This didn’t feel like Jester’s magic. It didn’t have the same tingle of mischief in the air that Beau felt whenever cast a spell aided by the Traveller. She hadn’t even grabbed for her holy symbol. Once those realizations came to her she started noticing other little things and it seemed almost obvious.

It was an illusion.

“You’re not Jester,” Beau growled through gritted teeth.

Not-Jester smiled a very not-Jester smile that sent a chill down Beau’s spine. “No. I’m not,” they said still with a Nicodranas accent as another set of daggers appeared and set themselves on Beau.

When that casting of the spell faded, Beau used the brief respite to try to catch her breath as Not-Jester started walking forward. “If I were, it would mean that you ‘friends' care enough about you to come find you. But look around, Beauregard. They’re not here, are they? They’re all very magically inclined, aren’t they? Surely they have access to magic that could help them find you if they wanted. But clearly they don’t want you. They’re happy you’re gone.”

“You’re wrong,” Beau said, but even she didn’t believe it. Jester could scry on people. They’d found others that way before. They could use spells to locate her once they were close enough. Even if they couldn’t find her using those spells, or if there was something around like Caleb had to block scrying, Jester should at least have been able to send her a message saying they were looking for her. She’d sent messages to so many people no matter how far away they were. Why hadn’t she sent one to Beau?

Beau tried to shake those thoughts from her mind. Tried to tell herself there was some logical explanation as she stared down Not-Jester.

They must have seen her doubt. They smiled again as they whispered some arcane words. At first nothing happened. Beau felt something tingling in her mind, but was able to push it off. She wasn’t as lucky when he tried again.

A cacophony of whispers invaded her ears, drowning out any other sound in the room. Her instincts told her to try to get away. To rip out of her bindings and get as far away as she could, but there was no where for her to go. She felt nothing but panic as the chains dug further into her wrists and ankles.

She wasn’t sure if the whispers were actually in the voices of her friends, or if it was just a trick of her mind. But she could have sworn she heard Fjord say that they weren’t coming for her. She heard Caleb say that despite how easily he went down in battle, his spells outweighed her fists. She heard Nott saying that they saw her being taken and chose not to interfere. She heard Cadeuces saying “You’re in pain? That’s nice.” She heard Yasha saying that in the battles since, they’d barely even notice she’d been gone.

Then as quickly as the voices started, they were gone and Beau was left with a terrible headache.

Not-Jester took a few steps towards her. “They're not coming for you, Beau. The sooner you realize that, the better. We can keep you here for as long as we need to and no one will miss you. You might as well just tell us what we want to know.”

The image of Jester shimmered. The figure in front of Beau grew into a man who was several inches taller than she was. He had sleek straight, long blonde hair and pointy ears indicative of an elf. His white-blonde hair was pulled back into a low ponytail. But what Beau would never be able to get out of her mind was his smile. As his dull gray eyes narrowed at her, his lips curled up into a snarl, revealing a top row of white teeth. The smile alone was enough to send a shiver down Beau’s spine. She felt like his teeth should have been sharpened to points as an embodiment of the evil he exuded. But they weren’t. They were just normal teeth filling in a smile that let Beau know he was going to enjoy whatever he did to her.

 

The next day, it was Caleb that came to rescue her. Knowing what to expect this time, she was quicker to realize that it was an illusion. But hearing and seeing Caleb tell her how worthless she was, how much of a burden she was, how no one wanted her around, it hurt. Illusion or not. When Not-Caleb cast a spell that consumed her entire body with flame, she had to actively remind herself that this was not Caleb. She also learned that fire was not the way she wanted to go.

A few days later, Yasha came in. Beau didn’t think it was the mage, but rather one of her other torturers who wanted to have a bit more fun as they hurt her. They used physical weapons that required them to get right up close to where Beau was hanging. At Yasha's height, they were just below Beau’s eye level. She could feel their hot breath on her neck as they drug a dagger across her flesh or put out a cigarette on her exposed abdomen.

By the time Fjord walked into her cell, she had already endured several sessions with the others. Beau had already been exhausted both physically and mentally. It started taking her longer and longer to realize the illusion, and Fjord took over an hour for her to discern. Over an hour of her friend telling her how useless she was. How they weren’t coming for her. Sending magical shockwaves through her body and telling her they never wanted to see her again. She didn’t even have the energy to argue with him.

The only two of the Nein she didn’t see were Caduceus and Nott. When she thought back about it later, she would realize that it might have been a height thing. She knew illusion magic could only make you look so much taller or shorter than you were. But the goblin and firbolg were so associated with the others and she heard their voices often enough in her mind, that her mind and body began to fear the idea of them as well, knowing they’d hurt her if they got the chance. Or maybe they just didn’t even care about her enough for that.

If anyone asked, she couldn’t tell them how long that went on for. Time had no meaning by that point. She slept when she could but never felt rested afterwards. They used Not-Yasha the most, followed by Not-Jester, and slightly less often Not-Caleb when they wanted to use fire spells on her.

Beau could tell they were getting frustrated with her. They didn’t understand how she hadn’t told them what they wanted to know. How she hadn’t broken yet. Beau almost had to laugh when she overheard them saying that. She felt she had broken. She just didn’t know what they thought she did.

It was after one of these grumbling conversations that the mage came in undisguised for the first time. He reached up to grab Beau by the neck and shook her. “Tell me where it is!”

Beau felt a shock pulse through her body, but she barely acknowledged the pain anymore. After the spell wore off, he released her and stepped back, taking a deep breath and trying to compose himself.

“I have a reputation to uphold, you know?” he said while straightening out the creases in his robes. “I can get information out of _anyone_.”

Beau stayed silent, not even having the energy to be snarky then.

The mage sighed. “I guess we’ll have to get creative then.” He mumbled some arcane words and did some hand motions that Beau had never seen before. She had learned to recognize many of his favorite spells that he often used on her, but this was new. And judging by the concentration on his face, it was a big one.

When he released the spell, anyone on the outside would have thought Beau had just started screaming at the top of her lungs and thrashing against her bindings for no reason. No one else would have been able to see what Beau was seeing.

In front of Beau stood her father. He was going on and on about how she was all wrong. That she was supposed to be born a boy who could carry on the family business. How she didn’t deserve the Lionett name and never would. How she screws everything up and no one will ever love her. He them morphed in to a shadowy creature with too many tentacles and too many eyes that she swore she had seen in her nightmares before. He continued to berate her in deep speech. She blinked and the next thing she knew, the bodies of all her friends were lying dead on the floor. The aberration came closer towards her, telling her that it was all her fault her friends are dead. She’d got them killed. She blinked again and several more of the creatures appeared behind the main one. All at once they turned and glided quickly towards her, either to kill her or possess her, she wasn’t sure. She just closed her eyes and screamed even louder as she tried to turn away.

After about 30 seconds, the monster faded and the screams stopped as Beau fell unconscious.

* * *

“After that,” Beau was telling Yasha, still without looking at her, “that spell, whatever the fuck it was, became his favorite. He would tell me that he wouldn’t use it if I told him where the box was. And I couldn’t so…” she let her voice trail off.

She harshly used her palms to wipe away the tears starting to form in her eyes. “I think I kind of shut down after that. I don’t remember a lot of what happened. More pain, more magic, more fear I’m sure. But I don’t remember the specifics. The next thing I do remember is you coming into my cell and thinking it was going to be another physical torture session. But then you touched my face. And it was so much gentler than I think anyone has ever touched me before. And I saw your eyes and… Well, you know the rest better than I do.”

Beau heard Yasha say something, but wasn’t able to make it out. It was a few more seconds for Beau to look up and make eye contact with Yasha. Her vision was starting to blur again, but she was able to see Yasha reach out a hand towards her.

Beau hesitated for a moment. She knew if she let Yasha hold her, she’d completely break down. But then she realized that she wanted to. She needed to allow herself to break. To grieve.

She took Yasha’s hand and let herself be pulled into her embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The good news? I actually wrote the next chapter before I finished this one so it shouldn't be nearly as long until the next one is out! (No promises though.) 
> 
> I'm hoping this chapter turned out okay and was worth the wait. I'm much better at writing the fluffy stuff than anything with actual substance. But we're back to the fluff and angst in the next chapter! 
> 
> Thank you SO SO much to everyone still sticking with this story and has taken time to comment or leave kudos! Every time I get an email notification for one of those things, it gives me life.


	8. Chapter 8

Yasha listened patiently as Beau detailed the tortures she endured. She seemed so detached as she was talking. But once she got started, she wasn’t able to stop. It was taking Yasha all herself control not to rage right then and there and to go find the bastards who put her through that. She'd get Jester and Caduceus to bring back anyone they had already killed just to kill them again. It took just as much of her self-control not to reach out and wrap Beau in her arms and promise not to let anyone else touch her ever again. 

When Beau finally stopped talking, Yasha felt like she should say something. Anything. But all she could think to say was, “I’m sorry you had to go through that. Thank you for telling me.” It felt nowhere near enough. But she wasn’t even sure if Beau had actually heard her. 

It wasn’t for another few seconds that Beau finally blinked a few times and looked at Yasha. Her eyes started to fill with tears. Her wrists were raw and bleeding from where she had been rubbing and picking at them. But she was back in her mind. She was present again. Yasha reached out a hand, giving Beau the opportunity to take it or not to. 

There was a moment of hesitation. 

As Beau took her hand, Yasha said a quick prayer and let her magic heal Beau’s self-inflicted cuts before pulling Beau into her arms. 

It wasn’t the first time Yasha had held Beau while she cried, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. But this time was different. The earlier tears had been ones of fear and frustration. Of not understanding what had happened to her or how to move on from it. As the younger woman shook and sobbed in her arms, there was something new in her tears. Something that Yasha could only think to describe as acceptance. Acceptance that what had happened to her had happened. That there was nothing she could do to change it and that she would never be the same because of it. But as she clung to her friend, or whatever Yasha was to her now, there was also acceptance that she had people there to help her find her new normal. 

Yasha held Beau until she fell asleep. When the shaking stopped and the tear stains on her shirt started to dry, Yasha finally let herself shed some silent tears for her friend, trying to process everything she’d just heard. 

Eventually she fell asleep too, still holding Beau in her arms. 

Yasha thought this would be a turning point. That that was the lowest point Beau could reach and there would be nowhere to go but up. 

Then, a few hours later, Yasha awoke with a start to a loud guttural scream unlike anything she’d ever heard before. 

Yasha’s first instinct was to reach beside the bed for her great sword. She clutched it tight and felt her heart pounding in her chest. It was another second before she realized the scream was coming from Beauregard. 

She scanned the room looking for danger. She had heard Beau scream from her nightmares before, but never like that. And never for as long as she had been. But Yasha didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She cast Light on her sword, but even still the only thing she saw that didn’t belong was the look of complete and utter terror in Beau’s eyes. 

“Beau?” Yasha spoke gently and when Beau looked over at her, she gently reached a hand out to lay on Beau’s arm, as she’d done so many times before. But as she made contact, Beau jumped and pulled away so violently that she nearly fell off the bed. 

Yasha pulled her arm away and backed up a bit. “Beauregard,” still speaking as gently as she could. “You’re okay. You’re safe. It’s me. Look at my eyes.” She made sure the Light spell was illuminating her face so Beau could see her different colored irises. 

Beau just shook her head. “Nonononono. They know. They figured it out. You’re not real. None of this is real.” She was talking mostly to herself. She pulled her knees up to her chest and began rocking back and forth. 

Yasha tried to move a bit closer again. Trying to think of another way to snap Beau out of it and bring her back to reality. The eye color had always worked before. 

But and she started shifting, Beau freaked out even more. “Please just leave me ALONE!!” She scurried backwards off the bed and fell gracelessly to the floor, backing up further into the corner of the room. 

Yasha stood up, “Beau, please!” She once again tried to slowly approach the terrified woman, her hands up in the most nonthreatening way she could think of. But Beau wasn’t hearing it. 

“LEAVE ME ALONE! GET THE FUCK OUT!” she continued screaming. 

It was clear to Yasha that her presence was doing nothing but upsetting Beau further. “Okay. I’m going.” And she slowly backed out of the room and shut the door. She hoped that Beau just needed time to calm down. She planned to give her a few minutes and then would try heading back in again. 

She turned to find the rest of the Mighty Nein standing there looking extremely worried. Nott already had her crossbow out and was ready to fight. 

“Yasha?” Jester asked. “What happened? We heard a scream. Is everything okay? Is Beau okay?” 

“I don’t know,” Yasha answered honestly looking back at the closed door. “I thought it was just another nightmare, but they’ve never been this bad before. I tried to calm her down like I usually do, but she just kept yelling at me to leave her alone and to get out. I don’t think she realized I was me.” 

“Let me try!” 

“Jester, wait!” Yasha tried to stop her, but the blue tiefling had already pushed past her and into the room. 

It took Jester a moment to find where Beau was sitting curled up on the floor. She took a few steps towards her calling out, “Beau? It’s me. You’re okay now.” 

Beau’s head snapped up to look at her, but the look of relief that Jester had been expecting to see cross her face never came. Instead, her expression twisted into one of more pain and fear and she shook her head and tried to back even further into the wall behind her. 

“Please not again. Please don’t hurt me anymore.” 

Jester had never heard Beau beg before and it sounded so wrong coming from the woman. “Beau? I would never hurt you. Why would I-" 

She was cut off by Beau, “I’m telling the truth! I don’t know where it is! I swear if I did I would tell you now. I can’t do this anymore. Just kill me or leave me alone to die. Just LEAVE!” 

As Beau yelled at her, Jester’s eyes filled with tears. She ran out of the room and might have run further had Fjord not caught her in his arms. 

“She’s so scared!” Jester said through her sobs into Fjord’s chest. “She thought I was going to hurt her. I would never hurt her! She wanted me to kill her.” That was all she managed to get out before she started crying too hard. Fjord took her a few steps away from Beau’s door as he continued to try to calm the tiefling in his arms. 

“It’s not your fault, Jester,” Yasha told her. “They, or specifically that mage that got away, fucked with her mind. He would disguise himself as one of us and pretend we were there to rescue her. Then he would continue to torture her for the information, all while still looking like us. Telling her we’d never wanted her around in the first place, that we were using her and then we’d abandon her like everyone else had.” She didn’t know if Beau would think she was giving them too much information, but at this point they needed to know. “She said the likenesses, and even the voices, were all pretty spot on. The only thing they got wrong were my eyes. Usually when she wakes up from her nightmares, she’s able to look into my eyes and realize she’s safe. But something was different this time.” 

“Is there anything in there she can hurt herself with?” Fjord asked, still holding Jester, who was finally beginning to calm. Or at least cry less violently. 

Yasha shook her head. “There aren’t any blades in there right now that I know of.” She was still holding her own sword. But the thought crossed her mind that if Beau truly wanted to hurt herself, she’d be able to do it without any sharp instruments or weapons of any kind. 

“Did she say if the mage ever disguised himself as me?” Dairon had been standing just behind the Nein since Beau’s scream. 

Yasha thought about it for a second before shaking her head. “She never said anything.” 

“They had probably been watching your group for a while, but as I was not with you then, they likely didn’t know I existed. She should have no reason to associate me with any pain inflicted from them. May I try?” She was looking mainly at Yasha. 

Yasha nodded, willing to try anything. 

Dairon calmly walked into the room, shutting the door behind her. 

 

Dairon walked over to the side of the room where Beau was sitting, knees pulled into her chest, hands clutching at her head. Dairon sat on the ground in front of Beau, but several feet away. 

“Beauregard,” she said softly and calmly. 

Beau jumped at the sound and looked up at Dairon. “D- Dairon?” 

Dairon, who had heard what had happened when Jester tried to talk to Beau, considered that a good sign. Dairon nodded. “I’m here, Beauregard. And I know it doesn’t feel like it, but I promise you you’re safe. But you need to breathe. Okay? I need you to take a few deep breaths. Just like they taught you at the monastery. In through your nose for five, and out through your mouth for five.” 

It was a technique they learned for meditation, but more than once Dairon had found it useful in calming a panic attack, hers or someone else’s. She counted for Beau as Beau tried to breathe. She never quite made it the full five counts, but she calmed down enough that she was able to speak. 

“He was there,” she said, her chest still rising and falling rapidly. “In my dream. Nightmare. I mean, I’ve seen him in my nightmares before, but this time it was different. This time he was _there_. I don’t really know how to explain it. But he was _there_. He smiled at me and turned himself into Yasha. Then she- he stared at me with her different colored eyes and cast a spell. It was like my entire body was consumed with flames. But I couldn’t move or do anything to put them out. He told me that none of this is real. That I’m still trapped in that prison. No one is coming for me. What if he’s right? What if I’m still there? What if none of this is real?” 

“Look around, Beauregard. You are no longer in that prison cell. You are on a ship. You aren’t restrained. You are free. And you are surrounded by your friends. What part of that seems not real?” 

Beau glanced around the room, but Dairon's reassurances had done nothing to assuage her fears. 

“Do you remember Crazy Carlton?” Beau asked. 

Dairon nodded. Everyone at the Cobalt Soul knew Crazy Carlton. Even those who had started there after he had died had heard his stories. 

Carlton was a human who trained at the Cobalt Soul. In his younger years, he did many field missions, similar to Dairon. And he had clearly seen some shit. No one knew exactly what his breaking point had been and he never spoke about it. He came back from a mission one day and was just different. He refused to leave the library and became extremely paranoid. He did, however, like to tell his experiences to the young students and ‘warn' them what they were getting into. He was somewhat of a legend. The older students would tell the younger ones about “Crazy Carlton" and his terror stories. The younger students always pretended not to believe the tall, secondhand tales, but without fail, the fresh class tracked him down each year to hear what he had to say. No one, not even Dairon knew which of his stories were true and which parts were made up. 

It also seemed that every year, all of the new students went to talk to him the first time, but only one or two ever went back to listen to more. It seemed very likely to Dairon that during Beau’s first year, she had been that one. 

“He told me once that when the pain gets too bad, when it becomes too much to endure, you shut yourself away in your mind to try cope. A ‘happy place’ of sorts. What if that’s all this is? What if I made a place for myself to think I’m safe but I’m actually not? What if this is all in my head? Or what if they figured out I’d feel safe here and are using magic to recreate it?” Her breath rate increased as the panic began to rise within her again. 

“What if I can show you something there is no way they could recreate using illusion magic?” 

Beau looked at her and Dairon saw a glint of hope and curiosity trying to make its way out from behind the fear. Dairon reached into her tunic pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, handing it over to Beau. Beau cautiously took it and began to unfold it. 

“It’s written in the cipher you gave me. There’s no way they could create an illusion of it in a way that would make it legible.” 

As Beau began to really look at the letter and translate it in her head, her panic attack calmed. Dairon wasn’t sure if it was because she believed what Dairon was saying, or just because her mind had something else to focus on. Either way, Darion would take it. 

The mental translation process of this cipher was a slow one, but Beau knew it well enough that it only took her a minute or so to get the first line done. “’Dear Beauregard, If you’re reading this then I’m sorry.’ Dairon? What is this?” 

“Do you believe that this is real and you are safe?” When Beau finally nodded, Dairon held her hand out for the letter. “You know what it is, Beauregard. In our line of work you want to write letters like this. It can be inadvisable, but our cipher allowed me to write this one without fear of anyone else knowing what was written in it. And it’s something that I hope you wouldn’t create in your ‘happy place'.” 

Beau hesitated. Torn between wanting to read the rest of the letter and hoping to forget about it and never having to see it again. After a moment, she handed the letter back to Dairon, who tucked it back into her tunic. 

“What do I do if this happens again? What if he invades my nightmares again and I wake up and can’t trust my own mind?” There was a quiver in Beau’s voice. 

Dairon thought for a second. “Come up with a code word, or special gesture for each of your friends. Something that only the two of you know. Then if you’re uncertain, you can ask for confirmation.” 

“Like a safe word?” Beau halfheartedly joked. 

“Or a secret handshake,” Dairon shot back, almost earning a smile from her pupil. The almost smile quickly faded and Beau’s eyes started watering. Dairon shifted her position so she was seated right next to Beau and wrapped her arms around the girl. “Come here.” 

Beau allowed Dairon to pull her into an embrace and collapsed into her, resting her head on Dairon’s shoulder. 

“I’m just so tired,” she practically whispered from behind silent tears. 

“I know,” empathized Dairon, knowing she didn’t just mean physically. She cradled Beau into her, rubbing what she hoped were comforting circles on Beau’s back. “Let’s get you back into bed.” She lifted Beau with a surprising ease that under different circumstances might have turned Beau on, or at least elicited a flirty joke. 

Dairon held Beau for a few minutes longer until the younger woman spoke up. “They’re all right outside, aren’t they? My friends?” 

Dairon nodded. “You screamed loud enough when you woke that it woke us all up. Everyone wanted to make sure you were okay. They were about to break down the door when you started yelling at Yasha to get out.” 

Beau pulled herself out of Dairon’s comforting arms and sat up. “I yelled at Yasha,” she stated as the night’s events came back to her. “I can’t believe I- Oh gods.” A wave of realization washed over her face. “I yelled at _Jester_. Fuck. Who could yell at _Jester_?” She ran her hands through her hair and breathed out a sigh. 

“She’ll understand,” Dairon tried to reassure her. “You were frightened and not in your right mind.” 

Beau nodded. “Do you mind sending her in here? I just… I don’t want her going the rest of the night thinking I’m mad at her.” 

“So much for not getting too close, huh?” Dairon said with a bit of a smirk that Beau almost missed. “For what it’s worth, I think you made the right decision not listening to me with that one.” 

“Can I get that in writing?” 

“I’ll send in Jester,” Dairon ignored her joke as she stood up and headed for the door. 

“Dairon?” Beau called out before she grabbed the doorknob. 

Dairon turned back around. 

“Thank you. For helping me. And for what it’s worth, I hope I never get to finish reading that letter.” 

Dairon nodded, but said nothing. She knew that one day either Beau would read that letter from her, or she’d be reading a similar one from the human. She made her way back into the hallway where the Mighty Nein were standing. She assured them that Beau was going to be okay before sending Jester into the room. 

 

As she waited for Jester, Beau fiddled with the edge of the quilt she was under and started going over all of the lessons Fjord had given her about apologizing. 

She still couldn’t believe she yelled at Jester. Out of all the people who the mage turned himself into, Jester might have been the hardest for Beau. Yasha was hard, but Jester… Jester had been her best friend pretty much since the moment they met. The first real friend that Beau had had in years. The first person to accept Beau for who she was. Who didn’t care that she was a bit of an asshole, or about what she had done in the past. The first person who hadn’t tried to change her. To think that that might not have been real, that had been devastating. 

Jester finally slowly entered the room and shut the door behind her. She didn’t enter any further than the doorway as she looked cautiously at Beau. Her eyes were red from crying and Beau’s guilt increased. 

She reached her hand out towards her best friend and said, “Jester. I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I wasn’t thinking straight and I-“ 

Jester cut her off when she rushed across the room and grabbed Beau’s outstretched hand. “You don’t need to apologize, Beau. Yasha told us that he made himself look like us when he hurt you. _I'm_ sorry! I shouldn’t have rushed in here like I did and-" 

Beau squeezed her hand and shook her head. “You were just worried about me and wanted to help. 

"Still. I hate that I just made everything worse tonight. I don’t want you to be scared of me ever again.” 

Beau smiled, “Love you, Jes.” 

At that Jester’s face lit up. “I love you too, Beau,” and she lunged in to give Beau the biggest hug she could. As she pulled back she asked, “But what if it happens again?” 

“Dairon suggested that I come up with something unique for each of you that no one else could know. Like a code word or a secret handshake or something.” 

At the words ‘secret handshake' Jester gasped in excitement. “Blud and I used to have a secret handshake! It was kind of lame though. We’ll think of a much better one! What if we like-" 

“Tomorrow, Jester,” Beau smiled as she cut her off. “I’m exhausted.” 

“Right,” Jester said sheepishly. “You get some rest. I’ll come up with a great secret handshake for us to learn! Do you umm… want me to send in Yasha?” 

Beau nodded. She wanted to apologize to Yasha too. “Please.” 

Jester gave her one last hug before heading out the door. 

A moment later, Yasha walked in. Just like Jester had, she stood in the doorway for a moment as they both just stared at each other. 

Beau was the first one to break the silence. “I’m sorry if I hurt you by yelling at you. That nightmare was… worse than the others, to say the least.” 

Yasha shook her head. “I wasn’t upset. Just scared. I didn’t know how to help you.” 

“I think Dairon was the only one who could have,” Beau admitted. Seeing a face that the mage had never taken on was enough for her to at least begin to entertain the idea that she was safe. 

“Then I’m glad they’ve stuck around,” Yasha said. 

Beau just nodded. Another silent moment passed with Yasha still standing in the doorway. Beau couldn’t blame her. The last few times she had tried to get physically closer to Beau, she had freaked out. “Are you just going to stand there all night or are you going to come over here and hold me?” 

That was as much permission as Yasha needed as she climbed onto the bed and wrapped her arms around Beau. Beau sighed as she leaned into the familiar embrace and closed her eyes. She had just started to drift off when the fear of the mage being in her nightmares again overcame her and she jolted back awake, jumping slightly in Yasha’s arms. 

She felt Yasha press her lips to the top of her head. “You should try to get some sleep. Fighting it’s not going to make the dreams any easier when you finally crash.” 

She was right. There were multiple times that Beau had purposely pushed herself too far before falling asleep, hoping that she exhaustion would keep her from dreaming. It never did. If anything, it made the nightmares worse. 

“I know,” she admitted. “I just want to enjoy this for a few more minutes.” 

They heard a soft knock at the door. Beau and Yasha pulled away from each other slightly, exchanging curious glances before Beau called out, “Come in.” 

The door opened slowly and Jester stepped inside. 

“Oh! Hi! I wasn’t sure if you would be asleep yet. I was just wondering if you guys needed anything? Some water? Tea? Donuts?” 

Beau and Yasha exchanged glances, both knowing what Jester actually wanted. 

“I, uh… I think we’re good. Thank you though, Jester,” Yasha said. 

Jester’s smile dropped a little. “Oh. Okay. Well, let me know of you need anything. Anything at all.” 

As she slowly turned around to walk back to her own room, Beau looked over at Yasha, who just smiled and nodded. 

“Hey, Jes,” Beau called after her. 

“Yeah?” Jester whipped back around. 

“You know, I’m still kind of shaken up, and Yasha’s here, but I think I’d feel better if I had someone on the other side of me too. Do you mind…?” Beau shifted towards the middle of the bed and gestured to the side of her opposite Yasha. 

Jester face lit up as she climbed onto the bed. It was plenty big to accommodate all three of them comfortably. 

“Of course I’ll stay with you Beau! Whatever you need! You just lie down and get some rest. Yasha and I will keep you safe.” She lifted up the covers to allow Beau to shift further down the bed. She tucked Beau in as Beau caught Yasha’s eye. Yasha rolled her eyes, but was smiling fondly at the tiefling's antics. 

Beau allowed herself to be tucked in. With Yasha on one side of her and Jester on the other, Beau couldn’t help but feel warm, and almost safe. She quickly drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long one for you! Hope you enjoy! Also, I can't believe this has hit 50 comments and nearing on 500 kudos! You guys are amazing!


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